作為一個大學老師，看到一個國家陷入內戰二十年，然後瞬間變天，首都淪陷、總統走人，一堆人擠滿首都機場企圖逃離家園，然後，反抗軍直接進入沒有人守護的總統府，豬羊變色。伊斯蘭阿富汗大公國誕生了，2021/8/16。
喀布爾首都城(City of Kabul)
阿富汗首都喀布爾不在國家的中心，而在東側，幾千年來，喀布爾盆地即是東方兩大古文明的戰略之地。
都市土地面積1028平方公里，大約是台中市的一半，人口460萬，約為中彰投的總和，換句話說，這是一處相對集約發展的城市。
戰亂中的大學校長
如果你是喀布爾大學(Kabul University)校長，你現在想甚麼?想著自己的官位嗎?還是想著，如何讓校內大學師生可以保有穩定學習、安全成長的環境?
喀布爾大學成立於1932年，學生人數2.2萬人，其中有43%是女性。身為阿富汗國家級指標大學，首都淪陷了，戰爭即將結束，大學校園會陷入混亂，還是黎明即將到來。
怎麼辦?
身為校長，最現實的問題是$: 如何確保大學擁有足夠的資源可以支付薪資、維持學校正常運作。戰爭結束了，新上台的政府來自敵對方，你還能繼續擔任校長嗎?即使可以，學校資源無虞嗎?銀行裡面的存款足以支應一切開銷嗎?
其次，大學還能延續傳統，繼續允許自由學習嗎?還是一切重來?遭逢戰爭的大學應該不少，但是經驗可能無法交流。
學生呢?受到戰爭影響的學生，有多少人還能繼續待在學校，有多少人已經選擇跟著家人逃離?校方對受影響的學生可以提供甚麼樣的幫助?
老師呢?20年戰爭不算短，大學老師的教學品質與生活品質受到甚麼樣的影響?他們的工作會受到保障嗎?
校園建築?水電供應?食物供應?這些基本民生問題，身為大學校長有控制權嗎?
戰亂中的大學校長
喀布爾大學校長名字Mohammad Osman Babury (暫時翻譯為巴貝里校長)，1962年次，59歲，2020年5月23日才上任喀布爾大學校長，結婚，有三個小孩。
學校簡介: Mohammad Osman Babury is a professor of Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy in the Faculty of Pharmacy, Kabul University. He was appointed as the Chancellor of Kabul University on May 23, 2020.
Prof. Babury was born in 1962 in an educated and intellectual family in Herat. He received his BS in Pharmacy and MS in Pharmaceutical Science from Pyatigorsk Pharmaceutical Institute in Russia in 1985 with excellent grade (with honours). He completed his Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy at Philipps-University Marburg, in Germany in 2019.
巴貝里校長從2007-2017擔任教育部高等教育次長，他在一次2012年訪談中對盟軍撤離表示不安:
The withdrawal of US and other NATO troops from Afghanistan by 2014 poses a challenge for Afghanistan’s universities, which are responsible for turning out local professionals able to take over non-military tasks, a top Afghan higher education ministry official has said.
While it is only troops that will be withdrawn by 2014, a large percentage of aid money and development assistance is provided by the US military, particularly in remote areas of Afghanistan.
Some local academics fear that the departure of American and other Western troops could mean that Western aid agencies forget about Afghanistan.
However, the immediate challenge is to ensure that qualified people are available.
“Definitely it is our very important goal to ensure that Afghan graduates are able to take care of civil areas of life” as foreign troops depart, said Deputy Minister of Higher Education Mohammad Osman Babury, speaking at the margins of the British Council’s “Going Global” conference in London on 14 March.
Much has been done to set higher education back on its feet in the past decade and to rebuild a quality system in the country. “Despite all the progress and achievements, there are huge needs for higher education in Afghanistan,” Babury told University World News.
“In certain aspects we are doing well, and in certain aspects we need progress, but generally we are moving ahead. So I believe if there will be a well-organised and well-agreed strategy for higher education, that will avoid any interruption in 2014.”
The year 2014 is when Afghanistan’s current national higher education plan 2010-14 comes to an end. The plan’s aim is to ensure that higher education more closely matches national needs, particularly given the different goals of aid donors and the priorities of different regions.
Work is only just beginning on a post-2014 higher education plan that will take into account the withdrawal of troops, who provide some infrastructure and engineering services, although organisations such as USAID and the British Council have said they are committed to continuing assistance to higher education.
Babury said it was important to ensure continuity and sustainability. “A lot has been invested in Afghanistan during the past 10 years in every area of our lives, and these donors don’t want to see the failing of their investment and their efforts and contributions.”
But there are critical shortages of engineers, technicians, accountants and other professionals to ensure reconstruction and economic growth, and also the lack of an effective administration that can provide social services at the local and national levels.
“We are working on need assessments at the national level, and needs assessments at the institutional level. Our aim is to graduate competent people who would be able to respond to the needs of communities,” Babury said.
Expansion so far is not enough
A decade of expansion of higher education has meant that the number of students enrolled in public universities has increased dramatically from around 7,000 in 2001 – the year the Taliban regime fell – to 10 times that figure last year.
The goal for 2013 is 115,000 students at some 26 public and 54 private universities, Babury said, while acknowledging even that would not meet Afghanistan’s human resources needs.
However, some 150,000 young people pass the school-leaving exams, known as the concours, and qualify for university entry. There is not the capacity to absorb them all into higher education.
Many of those who do not progress beyond high school are women. Only one in five university students in Afghanistan is female.
“We believe the share of women should be increased,” Babury stressed, in particular by helping those who pass the concours to access universities with extra classes.
Another way to increase women’s participation in higher education is to build women-only dormitories attached to universities, he said. Around a dozen of the country’s 26 public universities now have women’s dormitories, but some are virtually empty due to the security situation, as women stay away.
Afghanistan is grappling with huge shortages of public funds and poor infrastructure as well as security issues, which keep many students in outlying provinces from attending university.
With limited public funds, private institutions now enrol a larger number of students than the public sector. Private institutions “are growing very rapidly”, said Babury.
Despite the country’s dire needs, three months ago the ministry imposed a moratorium on new private institutions. “The main reason was quality. And also, in big provinces we are not keen to have duplication in terms of engineering and medicine, [though] we welcome more diversity. For now there is a moratorium on new applications,” Babury explained.
Last year President Hamid Karzi said the pursuit of profit by some private institutions was harming the quality of higher education.
But with a moratorium on private provision in place the need for quality public institutions has become more acute. The ministry “is committed to doubling enrolments [in public institutions] by 2014,” Babury said.
Meanwhile the ministry has put in place new by-laws for quality assurance and accreditation of institutions, both public and private. “Peer reviewers have been nominated and will be trained soon,” he said.
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